


Not Enough

by Blake



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Crazy Sam, Dean has too many feelings, Hypocrite Dean, M/M, Mental Illness, fed suits sex, season 7
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-19
Updated: 2013-04-19
Packaged: 2017-12-08 22:40:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/766869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blake/pseuds/Blake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Love is the hardest pain you'll ever face.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Enough

Dean wakes up feeling almost rested, and the sun is biting through the ratty motel curtains. It’s late. _Sam didn’t sleep_ , Dean assesses, two breaths in. There’s a sloped-shouldered outline by the window-light. Dean fixes his eyes anywhere but.

_You didn’t get me up_ , he doesn’t say, too obvious. Sam’s been having enough trouble sleeping lately that Dean’s getting to recognize the patterns. Old pattern was, Sam woke up, waited for a reasonable time of day, then woke up Dean so they could hit the road. New pattern, sometimes, nights Lucifer doesn’t allow sleep, is Sam never wakes up, so Sam has no point of reference for a reasonable time of day. Eleven a.m. would make him too needy. Noon would be insensitive, coming from someone who doesn’t know what it feels like to be asleep. Sam shuts off the alarm before Dean has a second’s chance to hear it. Sam lets Dean sleep, and huddles guilty, second-guessing, in some corner of the room.

There are no words for how Dean feels about the new pattern. The new pattern is written in the hunching of Sam’s heavy shoulders, and it’s impossible for Dean to look there. When Sam’s shoulders jerk into a collected pose-- when Sam hears the change in Dean’s breathing-- Dean shifts his eyes to the total opposite side of the room, as far away as possible. Even in the corner of his vision, the lie is too painful to see.

Eyes stinging, Dean makes a show, a lie, of waking up. A yawn. A stretch. Last thing, his open eyes. He looks at the frog-shaped digital clock, so there’s a justification for the frustration on his face to fall into.

“You didn’t get me up,” he accuses. Sam doesn’t want him to see the heaviness. Doesn’t want him to know the new pattern. Doesn’t want him to worry. This is Dean not worrying. “T’the fuck, it’s late.”

“You, looked like you could use the sleep,” Sam says, the false energy in his voice clanging in Dean’s ears.

Just past the kryptonite-green digital numbers filling Dean’s vision is the line of Sam’s back, straight as if it was iron-pressed. Dean knows if he looked closer, there’d be folds, wrinkles. There’d be hints of the Sam that needs Dean. If he looked.

“Whatever. Where’s m’coffee,” Dean says, because looking is impossible.

The car ride is silent, except for Sam’s occasional startled gasped or hummed reaction to something going on in his head, which Dean does not listen to.

Dean hates calling things _impossible_. He doesn’t leave much room in his life for impossibility. He sees something, he tackles it. Someone challenges him not to do something, he takes it down. Anything claims to be impossible, Dean proves it wrong. It’s not so much philosophy or even a matter of pride, as much as it’s just part of the life. You fight til your guts are exposed a handful of times, you get pretty comfortable with never letting _impossible_ happen. Get beaten so bloody it feels _impossible_ to get up, _impossible_ to go on, you get used to doing the impossible. It gets pretty black and white: _impossible_ just means _dead_.

But, turns out, calling something _impossible_ is easier than admitting the alternative: _it hurts too much, and I can’t take it_. Maybe _this_ is pride, but Dean couldn’t live with himself, avoiding things because they _hurt too much_. Impossible things _can’t_ be faced, but painful things should be, _would_ be faced, if Dean wasn’t such a weakened wreck of frayed nerve and pulsing, shredded meat between healed ribs.

It would be better to believe he would die if he looked at his brother than to believe it would just hurt. It would be.

For breakfast, they’re at one of those hippie cafes, the ones that brew coffee that doesn’t taste like a burner and sell fruit that doesn’t come in plastic cups. “Is it really so much to ask for something with bacon that’s been cooked under the wholesome light of a heating lamp?” Dean complains, glaring at his bagel sandwich that has at least three green things in it.

“Dick,” Sam says simply. It’s enough.

“You turn my stomach,” Dean grumbles. He will kill Dick Roman. He pictures it in his mind, and the image of black blood makes his sandwich go down easier.

Sam’s spinning his paper coffee cup in circles on the table top. It’s inconsistent, probably matched to the rhythm of Lucifer’s voice in his head, which Sam is always trying to find subtle ways to drown out. Dean wishes he could see where Lucifer was standing, in Sam’s view of the room, wishes he could fire three hundred rounds into his body until there was more air than Lucifer, but as it is, there is no body, only air. He imagines beheading black-blooded Dick Roman again. Takes another bite of sandwich.

“Think this case’ll be as easy as it looks?” Dean asks through a mouthful. “Cause gotta tell you, I would, _love_ , to salt, burn, and have Connecticut in my rear-view by morning, which is the only place this shithole belongs, in my humble…”

Dean makes the mistake of instinctually looking up at the end of his sentence, like he always does when he’s making conversation and ready for someone’s response. But Sam’s not looking at him. Sam’s face is turned all the way to the side, like there’s something happening at the empty table over there by the bathroom. He’s chewing on the inside of his lip. He doesn’t notice when Dean’s voice trails off. He’s too busy hearing something else. The skin on his face is pale and shadowed at the same time.

Dean looks down, flinching, wounded. It’s absolutely not fair, he knows, but this feeling is an old one. He remembers it, this bleeding-out, scare-drained hurt in his gut. It was there back when Sam was hooked on demon blood: every time Dean made a joke and looked over to see Sam looking out the window and shaking with needing a fix, instead of laughing; every time Dean caught a glimpse of Sam’s nostrils flaring, catching a secret scent; every time Sam begged for relief and didn’t even know who he was asking, wasn’t even aware Dean was in the room with him. It was the hurt of knowing Sam was hurting from something inside, something Dean couldn’t kill, something _Sam did to himself_ , and therefore did to Dean. It was some sick kind of _betrayal_.

It was also there when Sam’s body was on cruise control, when Sam’s soul wasn’t there to step on the gas. Dean could barely look at that chiseled-stone face, knowing that those eyes wouldn’t even blink if they witnessed Dean getting flattened by a semi. That Sam didn’t _care_ , wasn’t _Dean’s_ Sam, and every movement it made was a mockery and a betrayal of Dean’s affection for the real thing.

It isn’t fair, to feel betrayed now. Sam isn’t doing anything, not to himself, not to Dean. Hell, Sam probably has even more invested killing his own crazy than Dean does. There’s no one betraying Dean. No one to blame. Nothing to shoot.

Those other times, there was nothing to shoot, but at least there was someone to blame. He couldn’t shoot the demon blood drying out in Sam’s veins, but he could be pissed at Sam for ever drinking the stuff in the first place. He couldn’t shoot Sam’s automaton body, but he could feel justified anger at it for existing without a soul. Those times hurt to look at Sam’s face, but not as much as now, with nobody to blame.

Dean is grateful when he hears Sam picking up his coffee and taking a sip. At least that means Sam’s not having a staring contest with empty space anymore. Still, Dean doesn’t look up. He takes the rest of his bagel down in one bite, and tries to think of times it didn’t hurt to look at his brother.

Weirdly, the first thing that comes into his mind is Sam’s dead body. Dean had zero problem whatsoever staring at Sam when he was dead. In fact, it had taken more than a little force to pry his eyes _away_ from Sam. With Sam dead, _impossible_ had already happened, and Dean was filled with nothing but resolution: I will do anything to get him back.

But time, change, enemies, and limited options turn wills into woulds. _I will_ hurts so much less than _I would_.

Dean swallows, filled with the brief, desperate plea, _I would sell my soul to make you better._ He swallows it down again. He always does. Through the demon blood, the soullessness, Dean always swallowed down _I would sell my soul to fix you_. 

Choking on _but I can’t_ would kill him.

“Ready to go?” Sam asks, iron-smooth. Dean watches Sam’s fingers collecting the trash from their breakfast, stuffing it all into an empty coffee cup.

At the morgue, Sam does most of the talking. He keeps it together better when there are strangers and concrete tasks in front of him, and Dean is grateful for the temporarily convincing lie, content to pretend for a minute that nothing’s wrong, that Sam is just fine, that Dean’s not a weakling and a failure. The coroner buys it, so Dean can too.

Then the coroner goes and leaves, and losing the fourth person in the room makes Dean more aware of the third person, the Lucifer in Sam’s brain. Sam looks over the body, saying nothing, but his breathing changes into something tighter and looser at the same time.

Dean looks at the dead girl’s file: third blood relative in as many months to come in with a mild case of fatal strangulation. Should be an easy vengeful spirit case, an hour’s research later to figure out who this family wronged back in the day, and then waiting until dark to salt and burn the body. The hardest part of this thing would be the typical hour of digging up six feet of dirt.

“No!” Sam shouts, low, forceful. Pure reaction, Dean looks up. Then he wishes he hadn’t. Sam’s face is screwed up in pain, or something like it. His arms are braced tensely against the metal autopsy table, and Dean has no clue what’s going on in Sam’s head. He’s hit with that hurt again. Socked in the stomach with it, or maybe a little higher.

Maybe it’s not exactly betrayal.

Dean had a brief fascination with fire, once. Spent a year being one of those kids that puts out matches with his fingers just for kicks. It’s a simple, satisfying game. Let your fingers get a little uncomfortably hot, get rewarded with watching the flame die. You can do it time after time after time, kill hours with it, as long as you kill each match, and wait a couple seconds in between. Sometimes you miss, though. You get burned fingers instead of a dead match. And the thing about burns is, heat makes them hurt a hundred times worse. You get burned, you shake the match out, put your hand under cold water, and let it heal before you even think about picking up a matchbox again.

Looking at Sam, it feels like flames licking at his skin, when Dean’s already burned to blisters.

And this urge, this stupid, wanting urge Dean has to ask _Did you try the hand thing_ \-- well the thought of actually asking that is about as appealing as lighting another match after just burning yourself on one.

Because the thing is, Dean has thrown himself on that flame dozens, hundreds of times. His whole life, he’s been jumping into the fire, blindly hoping he will wipe out whatever is hurting Sam, keeping Sam separate, keeping them both separate and hurt. Again and again, he’s done it. He sold his soul. He has kissed Sam until they were breathless blind. When there was nothing else he could do, he has bloodied his knuckles against Sam’s face until Sam was still as a body again, easy to look at, covered in red and purple from Dean’s fists.

It hurts, it always hurts, always burns a touch. You throw yourself into the fire, it’s gonna sting, and it might not work. But it always does work. Always puts out the flame, if only just for a second. One second is reward enough. One second is time enough to recover, get ready for the next one.

But it’s been weeks since Dean had a chance to recover. It’s been weeks _since the last time Dean put out that flame._ Weeks since the first time Dean asked _Did you try the hand thing_ and the answer in Sam’s voice had been _Yes_ , and the answer in Sam’s face had been _and it didn’t work_. The flame didn’t go out, and Dean got scorched.

He’s been a blistered body, dancing at the edge of the fire, for weeks now, waiting for the promise of at least one moment to recover. All he needs is a guarantee that it’ll work. He needs to know that if he says, _Did you try the hand thing?_ that the answer will be _No, let me try that_ , and Sam will try it, and it will work. For just a second, the flame will go out.

Or maybe all he needs is to grow a pair, and jump into the flame even though it hurts worse and deeper than the tortures of hell.

“Did you try…” Dean starts, but he can’t finish. Sam’s staring at his own hand, in silence, and he probably can’t even hear Dean.

Dean hates himself for being so weak, for needing fucking _guarantees_ before he can even _try_ something. He should be able to face the pain, do the impossible.

But his insides are a writhing, blistered mass of molten hurt that’s aching to solidify, that’s been kept liquid-hot for far too long. He just. Can’t. Do it. It’s impossible.

He cinches his jaw tight, asks Sam for a confirmation that the bruising on Dead Girl’s throat look like vengeful spirit material. Within a minute, Sam gathers himself enough to come over and answer.

Against the car’s window, Sam keeps nodding in and out of what looks like a totally restless doze. The mumbled words that escape are making Dean’s skin itch all over.

But more than that, Dean’s own pathetic sense of _helplessness_ is crawling all over him, making his stomach tighten and his gums copper-raw from how much he’s grinding his teeth. It’s bugging the shit out of him, the heavy, lurking knowledge that _if he hadn’t been hurt_ , he would be _doing_ something right now. Anything, everything. He’d be _running_ at the chance to throw himself into the flame, _if he wasn’t burned._

Dean doesn’t do conditional terms. He would never, not in a million years, settle for conditional love, or admit to doing his job only when he felt like it.

So this? This is hypocrisy. This is Dean saying he would work harder, love Sam better, _if_ loving Sam hadn’t already wounded him, _if_ he hadn’t already tried everything and watched it fail.

They’re almost to the motel. Dean loosens his hands to steer through the turn, realizes they’re cramped into fists from gripping so tight. Once they’re inside, he thinks, maybe, he’ll do something.

“God _damn_ it!” he grunts, all to himself, punching the wheel with his forced-open palm. He makes himself sick, he really does-- the thought that he’s so needy for guarantees that he’ll put shit off for as stupid a security as _being indoors_.

Dean doesn’t do impossible, or conditional. He does _here_ and _now_. He _will_ do anything for Sam.

He rolls into the lot, jams the car into park, anchors two fists in Sam’s suit and drags himself close, fitting his mouth to Sam’s because words fail.

Sam kisses back, biting and tonguing Dean’s mouth open and Dean groans when Sam’s hand covers the back of his head and presses, because it feels so incredible to want something and have it. Dean bites, scrambles closer so Sam’s ribcage tucks safe in the bed of Dean’s abdomen. Sam’s mouth moves frantic, hard, and the grinding of his stubble against Dean’s face feels like home.

But Sam’s neck keeps twitching, against the thumb Dean has hooked under Sam’s collar. They’re not alone. Every couple breaths, Sam takes in an extra hiccup-like gasp, ducks his chin before pushing forward again. Dean opens his eyes, sees that Sam’s are screwed shut. Blindly, Sam takes Dean’s face in his hands and pushes their mouths together again, and Dean can’t tell if Sam’s given up on himself and is faking it for Dean, or if Sam’s putting in so much effort because he thinks it might actually work.

Either way, it’s too agonizing.

Dean breaks away, clings to the steering wheel just long enough to register the blistered feeling on his lips, and then makes a break for the motel room. Anything, away, he just needs to not feel _that._

He doesn’t even shut the door behind him, just storms into the middle of the room and stands there, shaking with not knowing where to go. The thing about burns, he suddenly remembers, is that without enough time to heal in between, they turn into a whole different animal. There’s burns, which hurt, but aren’t enough to scare you from going in again, once your skin is healed. But then there’s burns-on-burns, the skin that’s ultra sensitive to heat, that can sense fire from inches away and that throbs under any water that’s warmer than tap. This isn’t the instinctual, cave-man fear of fire that belongs to anyone who’s been burned once and knows what’s in store. This is the skin-curling, all-over _pain_ of someone who is currently _being_ burned, and is being asked to walk further into the fire that’s burning him.

Sam comes in behind him and shuts the door, not timid.

It’s impossible, but Dean clambers over to him, sweat stinging his eyes shut, the blisters of his hands finding Sam’s heat, their maker.

Sam against the wall, whatever wall, Dean has pieces of Sam’s throat between his teeth. Nails in Sam’s scalp. Sucking at the thick tendon of neck muscle, tonguing the hollow-fragile rings of windpipe, ripping furiously until Sam’s shirts let his hand underneath, let his nails claim rolls of skin off Sam’s back.

“Dean.” It’s a whimper. Sam’s hands curl, loosen, curl in the shirt close to Dean’s skin.

“Yes,” Dean says, hating the break in his voice because Sam needs more than broken. “Me,” he says, presses it to Sam’s pulse with his tongue. “Mine.” He latches onto the corner of Sam’s jawbone, sucks in strands of his hair.

“Mmwait,” Sam exhales. Dean’s stomach keeps surging like an ocean, and not one inch of his body feels solid. He presses clenched-chattering teeth against Sam’s mouth, doesn’t want to hear it. Sam’s hands have his waist, don’t push, don’t pull. He’s unsure. The devil’s fucking with his head, something, whatever, Sam’s not sure this is a good idea. Probably isn’t aware of his surroundings enough to know if this is even happening. Doesn’t know if he wants Dean to do it.

But Dean _will_.

“It’s me. Get a grip,” Dean says, all harshness, for his own sake. It’s easier this way, trying to believe it’s all for his own sake, not for Sam’s, trying to believe he’s throwing himself into the fire for the sake of throwing himself into the fire, doing it because he’s fucked up-- not because he’s trying for something. If nothing comes of it, the flaw is within Dean, not in something that’s out of his control.

Sam shouts, a short, scared sound, tries to double over, but Dean’s in the way. Dean’s stomach drops again, he almost loses it. He bites down hard on his own lip and slams Sam’s body upright again, flat against the wall. “ _Let_ me,” he growls, past his bitten lip. Sam’s brow is knit, but his eyes are still closed and his head rocks side to side, lost. Dean doesn’t know what could’ve happened in Sam’s head between the car and here, but Sam seems more out of it than he’s seen him all day.

It’s brutal. It washes over Dean’s skin like a feverish film of desert sweat. It’s _Yes, but it didn’t work_.

His hand shakes-- his hands shake at Sam’s belt, ten whole seconds before he gets it unfastened. Then, reaching into the close warmth inside Sam’s pants, doing everything he knows his hand can do to make Sam hard. The other hand splayed on Sam’s chest, which looks smaller than it should.

“Gonna fuck you, Sammy,” Dean announces, teeth bared at Sam’s neck again. Then, he realizes he means it. Presses against Sam’s leg, and he’s hard. Sighs, good. Sam under his nails, he’s hard in under a minute, no matter what the circumstance.

A kiss.

A moment of lucidity. “Dean,” weakly opened eyes. “Yes, yes.” A collapse.

Sam’s easier to maneuver than he should be. Dean pushes him onto the bed.

It’s easier if Dean closes his eyes. Smells his way across Sam’s skin. Lips brushing skin that might feel their touch. If Dean opened his eyes, he could tell if Sam can feel him.

He tries screaming into Sam’s face. Sam follows the commands, tries to, getting one arm out of his jacket. Dean gets the other after stripping himself. Sam’s eyes fall shut, his mouth twists. The screaming was just to get some of Dean’s frustration out, anyway.

“Yes. Dean. Yes,” Sam says, sputtering like a drowning man catching breaths at the surface. His eyes flutter like those of someone who’s struggling to stay awake, but who can’t stand the brightness when he forces his eyes open.

There are bite marks all across Sam’s shoulders.

Everything inside Dean’s chest is screaming in pain.

He wants to fuck his brother, so badly.

He fucks Sam until he bleeds.

It all keeps going. This is excruciating.

Sam manages to be into it, when Dean’s sucking his cock. He says Dean’s name, over and over, like he’s trying to drown something out.

His face is still twitching as he comes in Dean’s blistered hand.

Dean’s watching Sam’s face carefully, because Dean does impossible things. A smile crawls up on it, fearful. Sam forces his eyes open to squint at Dean, tries to straighten his smile. The muscle in his cheek twitches, and he visibly fights an instinct to turn his head in reaction to something Dean can’t see. The smile, it’s a show, it’s for Dean. It’s Sam straightening his shoulders so he doesn’t look tired.

Dean stares between Sam’s eyelashes, to the pupils fixed too-still on him.

The broken, molten mess in his chest longs to cool into something solid.

He hits Sam, square across the jaw. At least the smile is gone.

Sam shouts something, a foot from Dean’s ear. He’s not talking to Dean.

Dean stands, shudders, naked, in the middle of the room, looking at his brother rolling around on the bed, fighting something invisible.

Into the fire. Dean lets his body lie heavy on top of Sam’s. Holds him down. Bites strings of Sam’s hair, keeps Sam flat on his back. His eyes sting like blisters, like the world is too bright. He lets them fall shut, bites his own tongues until it tastes like his molten metal insides.

“I would sell my soul to fix you,” he lets his guts whisper bloodily against Sam’s forehead.


End file.
